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God and Immortality
Chapter I The Upanishad
The Upanishads stand out from the dim background of Vedic antiquity like stupendous rock cathedrals of thought hewn out of the ancient hills by a race of giant builders the secret of whose inspiration and strength has passed away with them into the Supreme. They are at once Scripture, philosophy and seer-poetry; for even those of them that dispense with the metrical form, are prose poems of a rhythmically mystic thought. But whether as Scripture, philosophical theosophy or literature, there is nothing like them in ancient, mediaeval or modern, in Occidental or Oriental, in Egyptian, Chaldean, Semitic or Mongolian creation; they are unique in style, structure and motive, entirely sui generis. After them there were philosophic poems, aphorisms, verse and prose treatises in great number, Sutras, Karikas, Gitas, their intellectual children, but these are a human progeny very different in type from their immortal ancestors. Pseudo-Upanishads there have been in plenty, a hundred or more of them; some have arrived at a passable aping of the more external features of the type, but always betray themselves by the pseudo-style, the artificial falsetto, the rasping creak of the machine; others are pastiches; others are fakes. The great Upanishads stand out always serene, grand, inimitable with their puissant and living breath, with that phrase which goes rolling out a thousand echoes, with that faultless spontaneous sureness of the inevitable expression, with that packed yet easy compression of wide and rich wisdom into a few revelatory syllables by which they justify their claim to be the divine word. Neither this inspiration nor this technique has been renewed or repeated in later human achievement. And if we look for their secret, we shall find it best expressed in the old expression of them as the impersonal shabda-brahman. They are that is to say, the accents of the divine Gnosis, — a revelatory word direct and impersonal from the very heart of a divine and almost superconscious self-vision. All supreme utterance which is the inspired word and not merely speech of the mind, does thus come from a source beyond the human person through whom it is uttered; still it comes Page-186 except in rare moments through the personal thought, coloured by it, a little altered in the transit, to some extent coloured by the intellect or the temperament. But these seers seem to have possessed the secret of the rapt passivity in which is heard faultlessly the supreme word; they speak the language of the sons of Immortality. Its truth is entirely revelatory, entirely intuitive; its speech altogether a living breath of inspiration; its art sovereignly a spontaneous and unwilled discerning of perfection. The plan and structure of their thought corresponds; it has a perfection of supra-intellectual cohesion in its effortless welling of sound and thought, a system of natural and unsystematic correspondences. There is no such logical development, explicitly or implicitly satisfying the demands of the intellect, such as we find in other philosophical thought or the best architectonic poetry; but there is at the same time a supreme logic, only it is the logic of existence expressing itself self-luminously rather than of thought carefully finding out its own truth. It is the logic of the Himalayas or of a causeway of giants, not the painful and meticulous construction effected with labour by our later intellectual humanity. There is in the whole a unity of vision; the Upanishad itself rather than a human mind sees with a single glance, hears the word that is the natural body of the truth it has seen, perceives and listens again, and still again, till all has been seen and heard: this is not the unity of the intellect carefully weaving together its connections of thought, choosing, rejecting, pruning to get terseness, developing to get fullness. And yet there is a perfect coherence; for every successive movement takes up the echoes of the old and throws out new echoes which are taken up in their turn. A wave of seeing rises and ends to rise into another wave and so on till the final fall and natural ceasing of the whole sea of thought on its shore. Perhaps the development of a great and profound strain of music is the nearest thing we have to this ancient poetry of pure intuitive thought. This at least is the method of the metrical Upanishads; and even the others approximate to it, though more pliant in their make. Page-187 ON THE KENA UPANISHAD
The first two words of the Kena, like the first two words of the Isha, concentrate into a single phrase the subject of the Upanishad and settle its bounds & its spirit. By whom is our separate mental existence governed[?] Who is its Lord & ruler? Who sends forth the mind, kena preshitam, who guides it so that it falls in its ranging on a particular object and not another (kena patati)[?] The mind is our centre; in the mind our personal existence is enthroned. Manomayah pranasarira-neta pratisthito'nne, a mental guide and leader of the life & body has been established in matter, and we suppose & feel ourselves to be that mental being. But what guides the mind itself? Is it the mental ego as the unreflecting thinker usually & naturally supposes? As a matter of fact, it is perfectly within our knowledge and experience that the mental [ego]1 guides our actions only partially and imperfectly; it is governed by other forces, it is driven often by impulses that it cannot understand, it receives indications from a superconscious source2; it is associated in the body with an immense amount of subconscious action of which it is ignorant or over which it has only a partial control. Guide & leader, perhaps, but certainly not the master. Who then is the master? Mind is not all we are. There is a vital force in us independent of mind. For although the two work together & act upon each other, they are still different movements. Our life goes on or ceases, rests or is active caring nothing, after all, about the mind & its notions. It serves it as a master whose interests it cannot afford to neglect, but does not always obey it & insists on the rights of its own separate existence. Who sent out this life force, who yoked it or applied it to these bodies & these actions, kena praiti yuktah[?] Pranah prathamah— the epithet is used to indicate the essential life force as distinct from the particular life-functions called in Vedantic psycho-physics the five pranas[.]
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1 Word lost through mutilation; conjectural reconstruction. 2 Another word, perhaps "memory", has apparently been written over "source" Page-188 The Kena Upanishad is remarkable for its omissions. It omits to tell us what in relation to the transcendent & immanent Brahman this mind, life, sense activity really are. It omits even to mention one tattwa which one would think as important as mind, life & sense-activity — there is no least reference to matter. These omissions are remarkable; they are also significant. The Sage of the Kena Upanishad has a distinct object in view; he has selected a particular province of knowledge[.] He is careful not to admit anything which does not bear upon that object or to overstep the strict limits of that province[.] Matter is beyond his immediate field, therefore he makes no reference to matter. Careless of comprehensiveness, he keeps to the exact matter of his revelation — the working relations between man's mental life and his supreme Existence. With the same scrupulous reserve he abstains from the discussion of the nature of these organs & their essential relation to the supreme Existence. For this knowledge we have to resort to other Scriptures[.]
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The subject of the Talavakara Upanishad is indicated and precisely determined by its opening word, Kena, very much as we have seen the subject of the Isha Upanishad to be indicated and precisely determined by its opening words Isha Vasyam. To reveal the true Master of our mental life, the real Force of the Vitality which supports it and of the sense-activities which minister to it and of the mentality which fulfils it in this material existence, is the intention of the Upanishad. Page-189 ON THE HINDU MARRIAGES (VALIDITY) BILL
In answer to your request for a statement of my opinion on the intermarriage question, I can only say that everything will have my full approval which helps to liberate and strengthen the life of the individual in the frame of a vigorous society and restore the freedom and energy which India had in her heroic times of greatness and expansion. Many of our present social forms were shaped, many of our customs originated, in a [time] of contraction and decline. They had their utility for self-defence and survival within narrow limits, but are a drag upon our progress in the present hour when we are called upon once again to enter upon a free and courageous self-adaptation and expansion. I believe in an aggressive and expanding, not in a narrowly defensive and self-contracting Hinduism. Whether Mr. Patel's Bill is the best way to bring about the object intended is a question on which I can pronounce no decided opinion. I should have preferred a change from within the society rather than one brought about by legislation. But I recognise the difficulty created by the imposition of the rigid and mechanical notions of European jurisprudence on the old Hindu Law which was that of a society living and developing by an organic evolution. It is no longer easy, or perhaps in this case, possible to develop a new custom or revert to an old — for the change proposed amounts to no more than such a [reversion]. It would appear that the difficulty created by the legislature can only be removed by a resort to legislation. In that case, the Bill has my approval. Page-190 Letters on Yoga and the Family Life
Your daughter X has now been here for a fairly long time and we think it due to you to let you know what we consider best for her. It appears from our observation of her that she is not at all ready for Asram life or for intensive sadhana; she has too much of the ordinary movements and the instinct of sexual desire is too strong in her and unsatisfied and this indicates the need of the social and family life, not a life of Yoga. The family life accompanied with whatever religious worship or practice of bhakti she can manage is her proper field at present. For one with these unsatisfied instincts to live in the Asram would on one side be bad for her, — it would raise up a vital struggle and a confusion of ideas adverse to spiritual progress — for she has not yet the necessary inner force or intensity of the spiritual call that would help her to overcome. On the other side it would be likely to create movements that would be disturbing to the Asram atmosphere. It is better for her therefore to return home and do what she can there. I trust our decision will not in any way disturb or disappoint you; for it was not, I think, your intention in bringing her here that she should remain for a long time. It is in her own interest that she should not be pushed towards an effort that is premature[.] Sri Aurobindo. 16-4-32
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It is surprising that your daughter should have told you she received nothing from us about her sadhana, since we sent to her at the same time as to you a letter with practically the same substance. Herewith is a copy of the letter to her.... Sri Aurobindo. 17.4.32 Page-191 16.4.32.
In view of your last letter and of the disturbances in you which you hint there, we consider and you must yourself realise that it is better for you to return to your family life and not to stay here too long. The conquest of sexual desire can only be done if one is truly ready and has the spiritual call and is prepared, however difficult it may be, to give up for it everything else. There is no place for the sexual impulse and its desires in spiritual life and any sadhaka indulging it, either physically or vitally, is going against the law of the Asram life and injuring gravely his or her sadhana. The sexual desire must be either satisfied in the ordinary family life or it must be thrown aside. But you are not now able to conquer it. To remain here with the unsatisfied desire will only confuse your mind, bring wrong ideas, create a struggle in you and injure the basis of such sadhana as you can do. Make up your mind therefore to return to your family and do what you can there. It is always better to do what you can than to attempt prematurely something for which you are not ready. Page-192
The statement made in the Hindust[h]an Standard and quoted in your columns of the [ ]1 instant that Sri Aurobindo took diksha from Sri Sarad[a] Devi on the day of his departure for Chandernagore (not Pondicherry[)], cannot stand. I am instructed by him to state on his authority the facts of his departure to Chandernagore and afterwards to Pondicherry. A story was recently published in a Bengali journal that Sri Aurobindo had visited the Holy Mother on the night of his departure to Chandernagore and [took] her blessing and was seen off at the Bag-bazar Ghat by Sister Nivedita and Brahmachari Ganen Maharaj. This was quite unfounded. It was added that Sri Aurobindo took this step on the advice of Sister Nivedita. Sri Aurobindo on the night of the [ ]2 received at the Dharma Office information emanating from a high police official that the next day the office would be searched and Sri Aurobindo arrested. At that moment he received an adesh commanding him to go at once to Chandernagore. This [he]3 immediately obeyed — as was his habit, was guided to the [ ]4 Ghat in Calcutta (not the Bagbazar Ghat); a boat was hailed and he got into it with two young men and went straight to Chandernagore. He did not visit the Math, was seen of[f] by no one, did not see Sister Nivedita though he sent her a [? word] asking her to edit the Karmayogin in his absence. Everything was done in the utmost secrecy, he lived in Chandernagore in entire seclusion and it was [. . .]5 only to Sj Motilal Roy and a few friends that he was there at all. The police knew nothing and had to save their warrant waiting for Sri Aurobindo to return. A contradiction of the whole story was written by Charu Chandra Dutt in which he stated the actual facts and was published in the Udbodhan. The story told in your columns was a subsequent addition.
1 Blank left in MS. 2 Blank left in MS. 3 MS unclear; perhaps "I". 4 Blank left in MS. 5 Illegible word. Page-193 [Here the manuscript has several illegible words.] of Sri Aurobindo's departure to Pondicherry. Sri Aurobindo decided on this step late in March; Amar Chatterji and some young men from Ut[t]arpara moved him to Calcutta; he took immediately his belongings from his cousin, Sukumar Mitra, son of the editor of Sanjibani, who had been forewarned and, except for a visit to the Certifying Medical Officer, saw no one and paid no visit but went straight to the Dupleix and sailed next morning for Pondicherry which he reached on April 4th (?) [.] Sri Aurobindo started his sadhana in Baroda in 1904 on his own account without any diksha and received help [(]only much later after the Surat Congress, also in Baroda) from no one else except the Marathi Yogi Sri Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, by meditating with whom he received his first major spiritual experience. Here too there was no formal diksha. Page-194 |